[JoeDetweiler]

Interesting article from a month ago:

“It is clear that neither Venezuela nor Colombia will make the first move or fire the first bullet. But this is where FARC comes into play......

......the possible orchestration of a firefight between the two countries could be sparked with a muzzle flare from a FARC soldier’s rifle.”

“One Colombian soldier is worth three Venezuelan soldiers if it comes to that, but in terms of hardware on paper, Venezuela has the upper hand,” Webb-Vidal said.

And the Colombians know that. Their strength is man-to-man combat and they could weather well a long battle. It is in Chavez’s interests to have a quick strike and as short a conflict as possible, one he desperately needs to present as a defensive move, and one he must present as a win.

The longer the engagement were to last, the bigger the disadvantage for the Venezuelans, especially because Chavez needs to feed the troops.”

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18631

[Arkinsaw]

It is in Chavez’s interests to have a quick strike and as short a conflict as possible, one he desperately needs to present as a defensive move, and one he must present as a win.

That would be easier if he were just trying a quick strike as Colombia and their ground troops. But that is unlikely since I suspect it will be hard to make quick work of Colombian ground troops with 200 or 300 US aircraft zipping around bombing the living crap out of your "battalions" while they work.

If Hugo thinks he is gonna conquer Colombia without a US intervention then he really is nuts.

[woofer]

The longer the engagement were to last, the bigger the disadvantage

The Venezulians would desert or run away after one good pasteing.